Animating the Cyborg

I guess with my last blog post, I’d like to reflect back on all of our different projects that we have executed through the different new media programs. First off, I’d like to reiterate that I did not think of myself as an artist in any way, shape, or form before this class. Sure I’m a creative person and my imagination tends to run wild, but literally speaking…no. However, in this class I was given the opportunity to make tangible pieces of artwork that weren’t necessarily your typical paintings, but definitley a piece of art. I never thought about programs such as Photoshop as an artistic skill that creates “pieces of art.” I’ll go ahead and say that I’ve created d*** masterpieces compared to what I thought was going to be a disaster. And as for my final project, I am going to use the one program that I found the most challenging and horrifying…photoshop. At this point, I know this seems a bit like “brown-nosing”, but I can truly call myself an artist having now been open to the “other side” of art…at least a digital one…and I have battle wounds to prove it!

So sometimes we don’t always have time in class to discuss all the things I’d like–especially this upcoming week. I want to continue discussing Patchwork Girl, and incorporate Dollhouse and Blade Runner, plus we also have the anime films and events this week. Due to time constraints, I started to wonder if I should start posting entries to the blog.

I’ve always been hesitant to do this because I want this to be a student-friendly space, and also student-driven space, and so I worry about my presence on the blog (beyond simply posting comments) could be infringing upon a certain kind of freedom. However, I think it might also help to not only model intellectual curiosity outside the classroom, but, perhaps, it might help encourage the conversations started in the classroom to continue beyond it.

I was wondering what you as a class would want, so here’s our first poll:

Also, I just found this article. A woman whose legs were amputated as a child asked for a prosthetic mermaid tail! Given that she already had prosthetic legs, it may seem a little much, but I honestly wonder how it would be to swim with something like that! And to have to switch limbs to go swimming! What do you all think? Here’s the link: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10171471-1.html?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=Crave